Another Proposition

One day the Messenger of Allah had come to the Ka’ba and was circumambulating the house of Allah. There he encountered with the leading figures of the Quraysh such as Aswad ibnu’l-Muttalib, Walid ibn Mughira, Umayya ibn Khalaf and As ibn Wail. It seemed they had made certain plans again and wanted to make new suggestions to our noble Prophet. They said: “O Muhammad! Come, we shall worship your God; but then you shall worship ours as well. Thus we will have come to an agreement! If the God you worship is munificent then we will have benefited, but if our gods are munificent, then you will have benefited as well.”

What was it that they were trying to achieve with this? Had the Messenger of Allah accepted such a thing, would they have really worshipped Allah? Worship, being an obedient servant to Allah, required continuity; how could one explain the logic of turning one’s face towards one direction and then another after a year or two? The Truthful Gabriel once again came to the rescue in order to silence all the deniers on this issue. The verses he brought said the following:

Say: “O you unbelievers (who obstinately reject faith)! I do not worship that which you worship. Nor are you worshipping what I worship. Nor will I ever worship that which you worship, and nor will you ever worship what I worship. You have your religion (with whatever it will bring you), and I have my religion (with whatever it will bring me).” (al-Kafirun 109:1–6)